The present invention relates generally to the field of food service equipment, and more particularly, is directed to a cart suitable for serving both hot and cold foods.
In many instances, it is necessary or desirable to transport food from the kitchen to the location of use. Because of this need, numerous types of food transporting devices have been developed for such service by prior workers in the art. Quite often, it is desirable to transport both hot and cold foods and occasionally, frozen foods to the area of use. Under such circumstances, it has been the common practice to heat the warm foods at the kitchen, place the hot and cold foods in separate covered containers and then transport all of the food to the place of use. No provisions were provided to reheat the food once it arrived in the area of use. Hospital locations are examplary of this type of operation.
More recently, methods have been developed wherein after the cooked foods were transported to the vicinity of the area of use, additional heating facilities were provided to maintain the food in warm condition until immediately prior to consumption. U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,727,395, 1,513,357 and 1,455,395 all show the use of wheeled vehicles which can be employed to transport both hot and cold foods to various locations and to keep the cooked foods warm at the place of consumption.
The prior art devices have proved somewhat unsatisfactory in use because, generally speaking, the hot foods could not be maintained hot enough and there was no satisfactory method of easily and rapidly handling both hot and cold foods in the meal service area to serve the food at optimum temperatures. Additionally, the prior art devices required that the foods be prepared relatively close to the time of serving so that the cooked foods could be maintained warm. This resulted in cyclical kitchen operation wherein peak periods of feverish activity became the accepted routine coupled with valley periods of substantially no activity. Such peaks and valleys caused inefficient manpower utilization and food quality standards which were lower than desired.